Bob London explains the elevator rant: the raw language customers use when vendors aren't listening. He shows how to uncover it by asking better questions and staying quiet, then using those exact words in your marketing instead of vendor jargon.
Chapters
What is the elevator rant? Bonus points to anyone who knows who this is. Feel free to throw it in the chat. An elevator rant is what customers— now when I say customers, I'm referring to prospects as well— customers and prospects talk about on the proverbial elevator when there are no vendors around. It's anything that your target audience says to themselves or each other. It may be about you. It may be about their business. It may be about problems they're having with other departments. It could be anything. It's all stuff that they're thinking about and talking to each other about, or talk, even thinking to themselves when we're not around, but it is the truth. The elevator rant is the truth. And it's in their words, not vendor speak. One exercise that I do in my workshops is I will get a leadership team around the table and I'll say, okay, write down how would a customer describe the problem that you help them solve? And invariably two-thirds or three-quarters of them will start by saying, we have a multi-pronged global solution. They go, no, no, no, no. No, I'm not asking for your elevator pitch. I'm asking for you to talk about the customer's words. How would they use it? Start with I. I am a customer. So it's hard to shape-shift and get into that mode, but that's where this whole wall thing comes from. We feel like we have to have our own language, our own vendor speak. So it's very important to understand the words customers use in real life, or IRL for the kids out there. Why do I need to know the elevator rant? Well, because when you understand the customer's elevator rant, the target audience's elevator rant, it makes marketing and selling easier because you're being more relevant. The things you're talking about are the things that are big priorities for the customer. And there's sort of this duh moment, you know, where, you know, well, aren't we just talking about general business, getting to know your customers? Yeah. But what I'm talking about is the fact that we don't spend enough time getting to know them, or we assume what our customers want, or our customers have changed, or our prospects or target audience have changed, or there's a new competitor. And then that elevator rant starts all over again. We have to keep learning it. We have to keep learning it. How do I uncover the elevator rant? This is the part that I almost feel silly saying it because it's so simple. You just have to ask better questions and listen, but you have to ask about them. One thing to remember is your customers and prospects are not ever going to be experts— excuse me— on your product. And they don't need to be. They don't need to be experts on your product. They are experts in their own pain points, their own priorities. That's what we should be asking them about. Ask about them. And then basically, and I literally mean this, put yourself on mute. If, because that, that will keep you from interrupting them when they're in the groove of talking about what's going on in their business. When it comes to average talk time, even the best salespeople will still talk almost half the time. But in my conversations with my clients' customers, I only talk 25 to 35% of the time, which means, guess what, I get to listen more.
